


The Secret's in the Telling

by Potterology



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potterology/pseuds/Potterology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few short blasts in Karma and Amy's relationship involving hand holding and protectiveness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secret's in the Telling

**i**. _the places you have come to fear the most._

  

The first time it’s an accident. 

So easy is the warmth between them, the ebb and flow of their relationship centered around over a decade of familiarity, neither of them really notices what’s happening until -- well, until it happens. Really, Amy convinces herself, it doesn’t matter; just like everything else they have done in the past two months, it’s fake. Just a momentary relapse into a forced state of mind, and for all their ‘conscious uncoupling’, there are still remnants - embers - of the fire. This is one of them. 

Holding hands should not be such an issue. But it is. Because all Amy can think of is how the spaces between her fingers fit Karma’s hand as though it was made for her specifically, and all Karma can think of is how different it is compared to Liam - and not in a positive way. She wishes it were his hand, wishes it was him here at the raging lake house party of Shane’s (who is drunk enough to be ‘playing straight’ as he calls it - and in such a fashion is being held up by the lacrosse team and chugging a keg upside down). Somebody charges past and the moment drops, lead weight in the bizarre ocean of ‘Karmy’, and their hands part with an awkward laugh. 

Karma makes a lame pun and gets the fuck out of Dodge with a wave, darting towards where she thinks she saw Liam, leaving Amy to stand on the deck and stare after her. It’s - she won’t say painful - unwelcome. Not unfamiliar. 

Not knowing how to feel, she finds a cup, fills it up and rinse, repeats for the next hour, staring out onto the lake the house looks over. How did she wind up here? Pining after someone she can never have, letting the one great thing to happen this last little while walk away because she wasn’t right (and the look on Reagan’s face during that conversation is burned into the brain), it feels remarkably like taking two steps forward and three steps back. And it’s becoming a never ending cycle. 

 The house is beautiful. Sex toys out the trunk of a car and a dad with a start-up-gone-global only proves that Shane Harvey, while being the coolest guy in school, is also the most well funded. Of course he has a lakehouse in San Antonio. There’s a short dock underneath where Amy stands, a boat tethered near the edge of the water. In the daylight it must be beautiful, the trees ringing the edge of the massive lake, but at night it’s nothing short of breathtaking, brilliant purple and blues stretching up past the jagged silhouette tips of poplar trees. Karma loves this sort of view: picturesque nature is her weakness. 

At the point of wondering how long it’d take for her to drown if she sailed the boat out into the middle of the water, a hand taps her shoulder. Lauren, of all people, huffy and dejected, props up next to her, half empty cup in hand. Amy can smell it from a foot and a half away. 

“Not having fun, Madam President?” Amy asks, an eyebrow raised, staring into her own plastic declaration: I Am Alone. Fucking Starbucks. 

Lauren scoffs, rolls her eyes and glares out at the scenery. “Obviously not or else I wouldn’t be out _here_ on the Loser Lampoon with _you_.” A wince, a side glance. “Sorry.” 

Amy shrugs. “It’s fine. I think I like that name: Loser Lampoon. Like Makeout Point, but with a sharper edge.” Lauren almost laughs and nods along sort of because although she is not a nodding sort of girl, solidarity for her sister tells her to just go with it. 

“People suck,” she says after a long pause. Inside, a song switches mid-beat drop and turns into a Beyonce mashup, much to the student body’s jubilation. Amy breathes out a soft ‘ _yeah_ ’ but doesn’t say much more, mind already drifting to the missing warmth at her palm, the accidentally-on-purpose hand hold. 

 

 **ii**. _the best deceptions._

 

The second time, she means it. 

Los Angeles is, apparently, _the best place on Earth and I am meant to be there_. Karma tells Amy all about how much fun she had in California, about the trams in San Francisco, about the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, about the recording studio she visited and the track she got to record. About meeting Julia Roberts in a WholeFoods. Seventeen days of over-the-phone happy babbling about the trip and when Amy shows up in the car she busted her ass all summer working to save for, Karma throws her arms around her neck, kisses her cheek and immediately jumps into a spiel about how Amy has got to come with her next time. And Amy? She slides her hand into her best friend’s and it doesn’t feel the slightest bit out of place. 

What hurts isn’t the silence. What hurts isn’t the way Karma looks at their hands with the strangest expression on her face (somewhere between dispute and constipation). What hurts the most is how empty it feels when she counts under her breath to five and then pretend to remember she has to call her mother, yanking her hand out of Amy’s and delving into her bag. 

For the twenty minute car ride from the airport, the hand stays busy. 

The souvenir Karma gives her is a Marilyn Monroe lamp and it’s the best thing ever and Amy forgets about the hand thing, it turns into a non-issue and that’s okay. _I can do this_ , she thinks the next day, stretched out on her best friend’s bed, listening to a rambling diatribe on the _culture_ and the _scenery_ and the _people_ of LA. 

“Seriously, Raudenfeld, you’ve gotta get yourself out there. Next time, you’re coming with. Non negotiable.” 

The smile is ebullient and how the hell can she be mad when Karma can be this happy at the thought of a trip with her best friend? I can do this. It’s the slogan of the day. Of the week. (Of the month, as it turns out, because there’s another party and they dance and _I can do this_ has to be the slogan.)

 

 **iii.** _the standard lines._

 

The third time it isn’t her who initiates it. 

Their breakup is public and humiliating for everyone involved, and Amy really does try to squash the tiny, teeny part of her that takes great pleasure in watching Liam Booker (who she has nicknamed Hottie Douche Face in her head) get his ass verbally kicked by a five foot nothing redhead in a sunflower dress. No one knows what it’s about and Karma doesn’t say anything to her about it other than ‘we broke up, I don’t wanna talk about it’ which Amy is more than fine with. The less she has to hear about Hottie Douche Face, the better her life. It isn’t until she sees Karma in the courtyard with Shane, absorbed in what looks like seriously deep conversation, does she start to question something is wrong. 

She approaches carefully and only catches, “This is going to kill--” before Karma notices she’s there. _What have you got a radar for me or something_? Prime eavesdropping opportunity missed out on - but the compensation is Karma grabbing her hand, mid-wave at Shane, and dragging her towards the main building. 

“What was that all about?” Amy asks - well, more like directs at the back of Karma’s head. Karma laughs oddly, weirdly high, and shrugs, grip tightening for all of ten seconds. 

“That? Nothing. Shane is just - worried about Liam. You know. Because of the breakup.” 

It’s a lie and Amy can see it coming a mile off, seconds from calling it out when their fingers entwine and -- what was she saying? 

 

 **iv**. _if you can’t let it be, you may as well make it bleed._

 

The fourth time isn’t weird.

She’s okay. She’s been okay, doing well, not quite ‘ex’ because, like any addict, she will remain always at the mercy of her drug, but rehabilitated certainly. She doesn’t feel the sickening nausea every time she looks at Karma. Doesn’t need skin and curls and brilliant smile. Has even stopped picturing her when making out with girlfriend of the month. There are still dreams, but that’s not something she can control and Amy would like to say that she has made progress. _Over it_ might be too much of a stretch, but she’s starting to feel that maybe this is a clean break. It isn’t.

So, when she holds her best friend’s hand on the deck of Shane’s lakehouse, a momentary deja vu, neither pulls away in shared embarrassment. Karma kisses her cheek and grins; Amy smiles back and lets go easily, walking off to where she spots Jessica, a new transfer from Colorado who has the most wicked sense of humour. This feels right. This feels better. 

Inside the house a few hours later, looking out the kitchen window she sees Karma on the deck talking to Liam and a sharp pain goes through her chest - but it disappears as fast as it came. Maybe they’ll work it out. Maybe. 

But that’s when she hears it. The window is cracked and the music has died down to some indie track. Liam’s voice floats in on a cool breeze and Amy shivers, but it has nothing to do with the temperature. 

“The longer you don’t say anything, the worse it’s going to get.” Hottie Douche Face might have been too harsh. Karma sighs and glares down at her shoes. 

“What am I supposed to tell her? We just got back to being normal again. I don’t think saying ‘hey, _psych_ , I think I might be falling for you even though I put you through hell before’ would go over well.” Another sigh, angry and from the back of her throat, a noise Amy doesn’t think she’s ever heard Karma make. It sounds like self doubt and bitterness. None of them, inside the house or outside, notice Lauren until she’s butting in, voice harsh and pointed. Hip popped and everything, marching from her perch in the gazebo shadows right into Karma’s face. If Amy weren’t separated by a wall and a window and trying really hard not to be caught eavesdropping, she might step in. 

“Good. You shouldn’t tell her. Ever.” Matching affronted looks from both Liam and Karma threaten to silence the miniature blonde, but it seems something has made her brave in the face of an adversary. “I know who you are, Ashcroft. Took me a while to figure it out, but now I know. You’re the girl who only wants what she can’t have - and with Amy, you don’t really want her, you just don’t want anyone else to have her. You’re toxic and unfair and selfish.” 

Lauren storms off and comes to a short stop just inside the door, narrowed eyes softening as soon as she comes face to face with a stunned Amy, reeling from whatever has just transpired and frozen on the spot. 

“Do what you want with what you just heard, but trust me when I tell you it’s a bad idea.” In a rare moment, the sisters see one another as just that: family. “She’ll love you until she doesn’t and the only person that’s going to be left hurting is you.” 

 

 **v**. _clean breaks._

 

In the end, she goes to Duke Pre-Med and laughs the entire plane ride there. 

 

Karma sends her letters instead of voicemails, visits every other weekend, a revolving door of hairstyles and stories about LA and the vast many parties and people she’s starting to know. Amy visits California once and decides she hates it, but sticks it out for her best friend. When she graduates, Karma arrives in true Hollywood style and with the blank check of some label that wants to fund their new capital baby with whatever she wants; there are dinners and lavish gifts and -- well, Amy can’t help but feel as though she were being wooed. 

She isn’t, of course, but it’s nice while it lasts. 


End file.
